Got My Kindle — Prefect for Those Freaking Brownouts in the Philippines
If you’re living in the Philippines, brownouts are a fact of life for many of us. Some areas are having fewer troubles with it. Anyone that has followed my blogging about the Philippines knows that the frequent power failures are my only real complaint.
During one brownout about six weeks ago, I decided I had had enough. I had wanted to buy an Amazon Kindle since the day they
came out. The first time I learned of them, was shortly after arriving in the Philippines. They were $300 back then and I decided not to buy one because of the price. If I’m going to be living in the Philippines during brownouts, I might as well make them less stressful.
With the price falling to about $180 for the 3G model it has been harder to pass up buying Kindle.
May is coming, a month notorious for those of us living in the Philippines for an increased number of brownouts. It is hot here in May.
So, I finally did it. I noticed they have a ton of free books for the Kindle. Most of the classics can be obtained for free. Just a click and it downloads to my Kindle. Yes, I can download free books to my Kindle 3G even while living in the Philippines!
I’m finishing up with Thomas Paine’s important document in American history “Common Sense.” It has been an interesting read. I have hundreds of books on my Kindle already and I’ve had it about a week and you can get these free books even while living in the Philippines.
Learn About Living in the Philippines with Your Kindle
There are a lot of free books about the Philippines too! Many authoritative books on the history of the Philippines can be downloaded onto the Kindle for free. I look forward to getting into those. I hope they are not too dry of a read to enjoy as I want to know more about living in the Philippines.
I’ve got a lot of books from Mark Twain and other American writers. I couldn’t find anything from Faulkner and I’d like to have another go at some of his works. They are hard for me to understand.
If it is a classic, the book is probably on Amazon for free. There are also a lot of websites out there dedicated to converting public domain books to the Kindle format.
Getting a Kindle While Living in the Philippines
My main reason for getting it was to give me something to do during the brownouts. If you’re thinking of living in the Philippines bring one with you! You can buy a Kindle through this link.
If you are already living in the Philippines, you can get a Kindle but you’ll have to have it shipped to an address in your home country. Then have it shipped to the Philippines.
If you live in the USA I recommend Johnny Air Cargo and have some contact information for you. You can email Jesusa Pilapil at jessep_johnnyair@yahoo.com and tell her you wish to mail a package to the Philippines from the USA.
A Review of the Amazon Kindle
I like the Kindle. I’m glad I have it but there are some things I don’t like about it too. I got the graphic colored one. I would get the white one unless you’re eyes are still great. The letters on the keyboard are hard to see for my old diabetic laced eyes.
The screen is a little dark to me. I think Amazon did this on purpose. They wanted to make it so that the glare of the sun will not make it impossible to read. Mostly though, this was mildly disturbing at first because I was not use too.
After an hour of reading, I’m totally use to a background that is not bright white now and it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, it is very easy on the eyes.
It can’t be used in the dark though. You need a light to read a book on the Kindle. It has no backlight and that too is by design. To make it light weight and keep the batteries running forever.
The Kindle is rated to run for a month without a charge if you turn off the Wi-Fi. That is impressive! With Wi-Fi, I think it is rated to run for 10 days without a charge!
Amazon sells cases for the Kindle. Some of them come with a light on them. Now I know why that is a good idea. I didn’t get one of those; I bought a cheaper case just to protect the Kindle when it is not in use. They cost $60 and that is why I didn’t get one. However, it is now on my wish list.
I got the 3G version because I might want to buy a book while the electricity is off. It is nice to have 3G but adds $50 to the cost. You can also use the 3G to send yourself documents and read blogs but there is a fee of about $5 a week for that if you’re living in the Philippines. So, I did not activate that service.
When I lived in the USA spending $20 a month for a service like that, now though? I can’t do it since I started living in the Philippines. That is P840 even at today’s horrible exchange rate. I can go out to eat two and a half times for that! This service is called Whispernet and is free if you are within the USA.
Still, it would be nice to access some content that I cannot get because I have not activated that. It is entirely optional.
There is also a fee for transferring documents to you via the 3G. Amazon gives you an email address for the Kindle and anyone that has it can send a document to you. They let you setup a max cost per transfer though to prevent someone causing you to have a huge bill. I’m unsure if you have to have the international Whispernet option activated to use that.
If someone needed to send you a PDF document though while you were relaxing on a beach, this would be nice to have. I don’t even know what my Kindle email address is. I don’t plan to use it. Since I have been living in the Philippines, I’ve become a bit of a penny pincher.
Amazon says their goal is to make the kindle disappear into your hands. The hope is that you will forget you are holding a Kindle and will concentrate on the book. That is close to my reality with the device.
It is very easy to use, very easy to read a Kindle formatted document. You can change the font size which makes it easy to read books without my glasses on. However, you can’t enlarge the menus and they are hard for me to see in dim light.
While you can read PDF documents on the device, you probably will not wish too. You can’t enlarge the font and the page navigation that you will have with a Kindle formatted book is not the same. I don’t like reading PDF documents on my computer and I like it about the same on my Kindle.
When you enlarge the font, there are fewer words on the page and at first that disturbed me. Soon though it did not, in fact, Amazon says that for many this improves their reading comprehension and I found that it does for me.
Basic Expat Training Manual On The Kindle
I have converted my eBook to Kindle format. I saw errors that I have never seen before. And I was amused that I had trouble putting it down. I wrote the thing and I know what it says but honestly, I found it a very interesting read! I have seen it some much in Open Office that it bores me to read it again. That is not so on the Kindle. I don’t know how to explain that.
Yes, it is likely there will be a Kindle version off my Basic Expat Training Manual — The Philippines Experience coming soon on Kindle. I’m working on that. If you’re thinking of living in the Philippines, you should think hard about getting my manual. I really think it will be helpful to you!
I’m really glad I finally splurged on myself a bit and bought the Kindle. I need to spend less time on the computer. I’ve been working too much lately and making myself a bit tense.
If you’d like to learn more or buy the Kindle you click this link to find out more! It would make living in the Philippines a bit more enjoyable as books can be hard to obtain and they are actually more expensive here because of a special tax on books.
I know that living in the Philippines during a brownout will irritate me less now that I have a Kindle.
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Tagged with: Basic Expat Training Manual • Brownouts • Kindle • Living In The Philippines
Filed under: Living In The Philippines
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Rusty,
I hate to tell you but if you have a laptop ( any pc) you can download from Amazon “kindle for pc’s which is free. The kindle for pc”s works the same as a regular kindle. The reason i say laptop is you can run your laptop during the brownouts. You could have saved yourself some bucks if you would have known.
Sorry, Have a good day.
David, thanks! I don’t have a laptop and I do have the software installed on my computer. It just isn’t as close to nice as a Kindle. And when the power is out there is no net either. Thus no way to get a new book. I prefer to lay down. If sitting, I don’t want a hot notebook on my lap. It is hard to position, hard to get comfortable. Not sure why you’re sorry.
The main advantage of a Kindle compared to a laptop is that the Kindle can last up to a month on a single charge, whereas a laptop can only last a few hours before the battery runs out.
Hi David, we usually get an all day brownout/blackout (8 hrs). And laptop/notebook on batteries only runs 3hrs tops, so its still a no go even if you have an extra battery.
Hey Rusty why a Kindle vs a Nook?? Pros/Cons? I have a color Nook. Hummm wonder if it’ll work in the RP?
Some of the cosmetics of the site are broken at the moment.
I’ve been working on speeding the site up and I have but somethings are not displaying correctly.
I will get it fixed. The issue with comments has been resolved.
“If you are already living in the Philippines, you can get a Kindle but you’ll have to have it shipped to an address in your home country. Then have it shipped to the Philippines.”
Why? To avoid taxes? Because it looks like it’s possible to have it sent straight to the Philippines…
I’ve been thinking of buying a Kindle for more than 2 years now, but I’d want to be able to see how it looks like in real and how it handles PDF (as all the documents for my work are in PDF).
It handles PDF files horribly. Well, it is no worse than reading them on a PC. I wouldn’t even consider doing that.
But, there is a tool that allows to convert a PDF file into a kindle file. It is free and it is very easy to use. Then you put it on your the kindle version of your PC.
Most products on Amazon can’t be shipped outside the USA if you order from the USA site. The last time I tried to only books could be shipped to the Philippines and the shipping was outrageous. Now there is a tax on books in the Philippines. I didn’t even try, perhaps I could have done that but I bet the cost would be higher than using a mail forwarder like I do. I’ll check though, I want to know. Too late for me, I already did it. There SHOULD be no taxes due on it that I am aware of. But I’ve shipped things to myself using standard mail or FedEx and UPS and was forced to pay taxes that were not due. Using regular USPS it took months for a letter to arrive a couple of times.
Going to be hard to see what one looks like without having a friend that already has it. Unless Amazon has started selling them in stores, which I doubt but it has been a long time since I’ve been in the US. I’m not sure where you are though
From this page on amazon
> We are excited to now ship Kindle to Philippines.
> Your international shipment is subject to customs duties, import taxes and other fees levied by the destination country. We will show you these fees upon checkout.
> Priority Courier Shipping Rates to Asia & Pacific Islands
> Kindle or Kindle Accessories: Per Shipment $14.99, Per Item $5.99
So it should be USD21 for 1 Kindle, which is not that high.
I found some Kindle (not sure which generation though) on sulit.com.ph for PHP11,000 ie around USD250, while without taxes it should be USD160 from amazon.
I’m asking because I already bought something from ebay and had to physically go to the local airport in Manila to pay taxes! Yup, instead of receiving my parcel straight home, I just received a paper telling me where to go to get it…That stuff was USD30, it took me 1 hour to go there, about 30 minutes waiting there and 1 hour back home, and I had to pay maybe PHP2000…If I had known, I wouldn’t have bought it.
I bought something else (at about the same time, so I didn’t know what to expect yet) and only had to go to the city’s main post office. The guy asked me if I knew things costing more than USD50 were subjected to taxes (hum…what about my previous USD30 parcel?). He told me to consider it next time I send/buy something from abroad and let me go without paying any taxes. I just paid maybe PHP20, which is the fee to pay each time you go get any parcel (that fee was written on the paper I got in the mail box).
Wow, I didn’t even see that. But you know what, I would have still shipped it through JAC.
I don’t believe there are any import duties on this product. I have spent much time searching this issue and everything I found said there are no duties on anything below $1000.
Yep, I once had to go through the same process, go to the PO, then Customs, then the Philippine Land bank and pay $75.00 in import duties on $150 worth of items I bought and used while in the USA.
That was the last time I didn’t use JAC. They told me those duties were not actually due before.
When I went to the link Amazon provides about custom duties
It said it MAY be subject to custom duties.
I didn’t see the clause you spoke of the page you had listed. I’m sure you say it but? Confused
I’ve got a US address in my Amazon account, maybe that’s why I don’t see what you do.
I tried to find that $1000 exclusion just now, I couldn’t find it. I’ll try to find it again. Even if I do, there could be exceptions to the $1000. I also saw an article that said the tax on imports had been lifted but that was in 2009. I am pretty sure I read a more recent article in the PH press complaining about that tax, so perhaps they lifted and put it back in. I’m not sure.
If you get your kindle here in the US and use it in the Philippines, is it ready to use and to be signed up to your amazon account? is it as easy as the way you do it here in US?
I got mine from the USA but I never used it there.
It is very easy to use, turn it on and it downloads books.
If you want subscriptions though, you’ll have to pay about $5 a week extra for that. If it was $5 a month, I’d consider it. I have never tried that service.
Books still download for free.
This is very helpful. Thank you for the information. I have been wondering if I can use the 3G of the kindle in the Phil. for free and if there really is a 3G connection there. But it seems that I have to pay for it, right? What i’m trying to say is there is a 3G connection there for the kindle but you have to pay for it, right?
Hi AU, you know I didn’t buy the Kindle a couple of years ago because trying to understand stand Amazon’s description was complicated. I too thought I had to pay for a connection. You don’t have to pay for a connection to download books nor games.
But if you want periodicals and I think blogs, the cost is $5 per week. That is true any where outside the USA if I recall. It has been a couple of months since I bought mine and I haven’t looked into it then. $20 a month is a lot of money in the Philippines. I’m not going to do it.
The connection says it is 3G, it might not be the same speed but it seems quite fast to me. Now browsing a website is slow, slow, slow. I never bother with that. Too slow.
I know, $20 is a lot of money in the Philippines. I wouldn’t pay for it myself.
Oh, so you mean I can use the 3G in the Phil. for free but only to download books and games? And pay $20 a month to read periodicals and blogs. Did I understand you right? Because I’m planning on buying a Kindle 3G and bring it to the Phil. for my brother.
I’m really thankful for your help.
I don’t pay for it. I thought about getting it for a week just to test but I never did.
I can put my blog on it but to read it I would have to pay the $5 and then I’d need 20 subscribers per month to break even.
I might get around to doing that.
Yes, I download books and games to my Kindle direct to my Kindle via 3G without paying extra. And I’ve never bought a book, have thousands of free ones.
If you do buy, try to remember to come back and get it through this link. I make a couple of dollars at most but it helps.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004HZYA6E/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=cex-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B004HZYA6E
Not a big deal though.
Your blog was really helpful. I’m from the Philippines and I bought a Kindle last week.
Yes, internet access is indeed free! 
Thanks Alice, glad it has been helpful for you. Yes, I’ve had my kindle for a while now, Internet is more reliable on it than my computer. haha Pretty slow for me via the Kindle, how about you?
Hi Alice, what version of Kindle did you have? Would the Kindly WiFi (without 3G) work here in the Philippines?
Zeny, if you don’t get the 3G then you have to connect via a WIFi. If you have the 3G you can connect most places in the Philippines. It has always connected regardless of where I am.
I wanted to be able to connect during brownouts but that really isn’t a huge deal there are so many free books that I’ll never need to buy a book just to have something to do. It is easier also for me to browse Amazon from my PC and then just send it to my Kindle. Having the 3G means you don’t need to connect to a local WiFi Network.
Thanks for the reply Rusty. I have WiFi connection setup at home so I guess I could go without the 3G feature then.
On another question, what would be the best way to buy my kindle? Have amazon ship it? I have a friend currently visiting the US, can I ship it in her address and she would bring it for me?
Alice, how did you purchase your kindle? Did you use JAC as mentioned in this article? And how much did you pay for the duties and taxes? Finally, was it 2-4 days delivery as mentioned in the Amazon store?
Hey. I was wondering on getting a kindle. So I have a few question if you don’t mind.
))
-Is the 3G kindle free of access internet in the phil. without wifi?
- How can you get books that are charged and need to be bought?
-What is the $5 per week charged?
THANKS!!!
Iza, if you read the article and the comments, I think you’ll find all those questions have been answered.
“- How can you get books that are charged and need to be bought?”
Not that one…
You buy them on Amazon, either via the web or right from you Kindle using your Visa or Mastercard or other major credit card.
Hi, the kindle that you have is the one that has a keyboard, right? i wanted to buy a kindle but i couldnt decide whether to get a kindle (the one that has no keyboard but has buttons) or kindle touch
Yes I have the Kindle 3G it has a keyboard.
what do you think about the Kindle touch? does your kindle have the ads or without? should i buy the one without ads or wouldnt it make any difference
I have not looked at the touch. My kindle has some touch functions and I don’t use them. I don’t like the keyboard either but I hardly ever use the keyboard so it isn’t a big deal.
They didn’t offer the version with ads on them when I bought mine. I think they are just the screen saver, if that’s all the are, I’d get that.
Thank you
Happy New Year!
Hi. My brother gave me a Kindle today and the thing is he couldn’t find the charger. Would you know where I can buy one in Cebu, Philippines?
Sorry Susan, I have little hope you can find a charger made for the Kindle in the Philippines as only Amazon sells the kindle. If you take it to a local repair shop though, I’d e surprised if hey couldn’t come up with something for you. There is a very good chance they could but I’d ask them what their plans are. I wouldn’t let them alter the kindle itself. Finding the right size plug to fit your kindle could be the hardest part. They need to get the polarity right and for me that’s the hardest part in using a third party charger on things like this.
Thanks for the reply. I was able to charge the Kindle through the computer using my phone’s USB cable.
What about the “NookColor?”, from Barnes & Noble. Is there some kind of “stepdown/stepup transformmor for that eBook? Like the one I use on my PC when in Australia, Phils etc, where you have 240 volt system!
Thanx.. Daniel Anderson
The Nook has some advantages. I looked at it a little. I don’t really recall why I went with the Kindle instead. I haven’t looked at the color version of it. If I were to buy something now it would be the Kindle Fire without a doubt.
Do they still have regular brown-outs in Cebu? We don’t have that problem here in Metro Manila.
Not in the last 9 months or so. Brownouts have all but stopped for now. Cebu is growing faster than the infrastructure can keep pace with though.
The authorities seem to be on top of this issue though and are looking to expand to meet future growth. I think this is the current governors last term though. Who knows what they future will hold.
Hi! I have a Kindle keyboard, much like yours but without 3G. It broke a few weeks back. Where do you think I can have it repaired here in Cebu? I do not want to ship it back to the US to have it replaced. I’m so lost without it.